


freedom

by silentsaint



Category: Compilation of Final Fantasy VII, Final Fantasy VII Remake (Video Game 2020)
Genre: Dreams, Enemies to ???? to Lovers, Existentialism, M/M, Mutual Pining, Post-Advent Children (Compilation of FFVII), Self-Esteem Issues, the mindless intimacy of being so close you Can't not perceive each other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-17
Updated: 2020-06-17
Packaged: 2021-03-04 03:33:38
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,130
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24767014
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/silentsaint/pseuds/silentsaint
Summary: Selfhood...what a lonely thing.
Relationships: Sephiroth & Cloud Strife, Sephiroth/Cloud Strife
Comments: 2
Kudos: 98





	freedom

It is a viper’s caress which encircles him, sickly sweet, the slow glide of leather and all things indescribable. It is the tartness of petrichor, the freshness on the air, the memory that is carried within water.

Cloud tilts his head back and tries to remember to breathe.

Is it...nighttime, somewhere out there? It must be, for he rarely wanders here under the cover of anything but nightfall. Maybe it was the exhaustion that did it, that allowed his mental shields to fall enough that the snake could glide right in. 

Exhaustion...Cloud lets his eyes slip the rest of the way shut. It’s easier this way, mindless to the point of reality becoming an abstract thing, something that might have existed at one point, but ceased to matter.

It makes the whisper in his ear all the more damning. “You haven’t been sleeping well.”

If he had been any less tired, he might’ve laughed. “And whose fault is that?” Hanging here in the empty stillness, Cloud lets his head tilt back farther, and his arms go lax.

The press of fingertips into his waist is too gentle to possibly be real, but thankfully all pretences at reality have been left behind at this point. “I have no idea what you could possibly be talking about.”

“Don’t you?” His muscles were aching when he had fallen into bed, but there is only a warm numbness here. It seems too much to assume that this is not a physical state, not when the feeling of touch and movement are still instated as they should be, but the fatigues of the day are gone in such a way as they never are when he truly awakens.

“...rest, Cloud.” And his name falls from those lips like a spell, some forgotten dirge set free from eldritch memory. 

It’s enough to make one laugh. “Don’t tell me you’re telling me to take care of myself.”

A reasonable impasse. An improbable truth.

Sephiroth says nothing in response, but leather covered fingertips trail over his face, tracing down the side of his cheekbone and looping around the sketch over his brow. 

It’s insanity in its purest form, to think that the two of them could ever achieve anything resembling peace. Instead they have this, odd moments of extended intimacy that touch upon the edge of being  _ nice. _

Maybe that’s why Cloud keeps his eyes closed. To avoid looking at the Other, and resting gently on the plausible deniability of this being a mere dream. If the situation is unavoidable, maybe not seeing the Other’s face will make it all the more bearable.

“Cloud.” Again the sonorous whisper beckons him, sibilant, wanting.

“Shut up,” he mumbles sleepily, and the haze around him intensifies in golden numbness. He bats at where he can feel Sephiroth’s hands on him like one might at an errant cat.

Time does not seem to matter very much, in the scale of things. Ten years pass in a second, and it takes a whole hour for a minute to go by. Such is the nature of things on the grand and celestial scale.

Slender fingers weave through his hair, and Cloud leans into the touch instinctively. It does not seem to be an option to pull away, not when every brush sings of  _ home,  _ and  _ knowing, _ and  _ peace. _

He is a man made of the broken pieces of himself painted in the colors of others. If there is any sort of peace he deserves, surely it is this one. 

_ A voice, smelling of warmth and familiarity and promises made by starlight, whispers that that is not true. That he deserves great and boundless peace and prosperity, greater than can ever be envisioned. _

It’s too much to really believe the voice. Not yet. But the feel of the whisper is soothing.

“Cloud.”

He sighs, with all the force of a rushing wave. “...what?”

“Don’t drift away.” A hand is still idly playing with his hair, toying with the soft spikes gently. “Not yet.” Sephiroth’s voice is quiet, but it seems out of the question that such gentleness is out of  _ consideration _ for him.

Cloud’s eyes threaten to crack open, as a curiosity swells up to know what sort of face is accompanying that tone of voice. The air is thick with the unknown, a fog pervading into the corners of his mind and gentling his resolve.

“Sephir-”

_ “Hush.”  _ Embers die away, only to be coaxed back to life with a gentle huff of wind. “The time has not yet arrived.” His voice comes through a little more clearly now, and with it a note of tension.

There’s a gut instinct to remark on the Other’s propensity for dramatics, but with all the tension seeping out of Cloud’s bones and leaving behind only honey-soft and warm-light, it hardly seems worth the effort to speak.

“Time for what,” he manages, speaking into a sigh. “For you to start your next monologue?”

“Very funny, Strife.” The voice that intones that particular remark has a slightly different timbre, a slightly different inflection to his words. There remains only one set of hands trailing over his body.

“S’not a no.” It comes out as a mumble, and Cloud gives up on restraint and turns towards the source of the  _ warmth, memory, self, belonging. _ Reaching out with suddenly leaden arms, as if there will be anything good waiting to receive him.

He is entwined, easily lifted to curl up against a chest larger than his own. There is the slight tickle of hair against his face, liquid mercury hanging in threads.

A sudden stillness pervades. An inner tension that has now been satisfied.

Cloud does not open his eyes. There will be other visits, unavoidably. Other encounters with the man he has thrice killed and once tolerated. Other chances for the parameters of this... _ cohabitation _ to be discussed. 

For now, there is no sense of body, no sense of time. Only liquid heat, and the feeling of Sephiroth’s hands continuing to card gently through his hair.

“The time...is still not yet here.”

“You’d be a lot more bearable if anything you said made sense.” Cloud gives a slight huff of breath as the hair gets in the way of his nose. Leather is neither warm nor cold beneath the side of his face.

There is a deep sigh, and he can feel the motion of the chest beneath him as it falls and then rises again. Perhaps the sigh is a little fond. Perhaps the snake has grown fond of the wolf. Only the snake would be truly able to say.

_ Time. Memory. Home.  _ All things that are subject to perception.

“Wake up, _ Cloud.” _

The world is wide and blue and  _ empty _ as he rises to greet it.

**Author's Note:**

> [twitter](https://twitter.com/SEFIKURAS) || [tumblr](https://sephirothcrescent.tumblr.com/)


End file.
